I applied for a part-time job today while wearing my fuzzy leopard-print robe and the Hello Kitty slippers I picked-up for free at a local Burning Man event. To further help with the visual, this was while curled up on the purple velvet chaise lounge, sipping coffee from the over-sized “I (heart) Mini” mug we got when we bought our Mini Clubman. I feel I should be swooning from the sheer pathos of it, back of hand to forehead, eyelids fluttering, chin to the heavens. Poor, poor pitiful me.

Joe has been taking Sookie, said Mini, to work, or most days the Park-n-Ride for the bus to work, (a reward for being the sole bread winner right now, the rational/sane one who knows how to bite his tongue when the boss goes crazy, and still has a job), since supposedly I’m at home most of the day, job-searching, writing, and not in much need of a car. (I’m certainly not watching the modern-day equivalent of a soap opera, albeit high-brow soap opera, the BBC’s “Call The Midwife,” eating a pity cookie and burying the evidence wrapper in the trash.) This means that when I do drive, I have to take what used to be a perfectly fine car, but I have recently been referring to as the Jetlopy, our ’99 Jetta. It has very dramatic cracks on the windshield that get the evil-eye from me while I’m behind the wheel, and some bubbling of paint, and those types of headlights that are dulled like cataracts, even after you rub with toothpaste like in that amazingly clever Pinterest fix. The interior is littered with mysterious bits of man-trash I don’t know if I should clean or not as I’m not privy to their importance. I forget which way to push the gear-shifter into Reverse, how to turn on the dash lights, the driver’s seat is stuck in the Slouchback position Joe prefers so that I find I’m working my abs to sit straight (there’s a plus!), I’m forced to listen to regular radio, with commercials, or people asking for money, instead of the Sirius radio Sookie plays from her bitchin’ Harman Kardon sound system. But, the Jetlopy is paid for and still running, so needs must, eh? (Certainly not a phrase someone would pick up from a BBC show. Certainly not.) I find my hand twitching up off the steering wheel when I encounter Mini’s, in the start of a Mini’s Unite solidarity wave, but stop when I realize I’m in the wrong car. In so many ways…

Another disadvantage to being unemployed-hoping-to-be-self-employed, is that by sleeping until I am done and taking my time getting ready for the day, means that the towel I grab off the heated towel rack is no longer warm when I step out of the shower. The timer is set for a little before Joe gets up until a little after I would be leaving on a normal work day. I know, boo hoo, right? I suppose I could get up earlier so I could still have that warm, comforting cotton on my face, like nuzzling into your grandfather’s flannel shirt. Or reset the timer to go a little longer, but that would not fit in with my newfound frugality, nor my life-long energy-conserving ways. I may just have to suffer in pouty silence.